We talk frequently about food security in Rwanda and across Africa. We ask whether we produce enough to feed our populations, whether families can afford nutritious food, whether agricultural productivity is improving and whether African countries can reduce their dependence on imports.

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These are essential questions. But there is another, more immediate question that deserves equal attention: Is what we are eating and drinking safe?

The question has acquired particular urgency in relation to alcoholic beverages. Across Africa, people continue to become seriously ill, and sometimes die, after consuming counterfeit, adulterated or illegally manufactured alcohol. What a consumer believes to be an ordinary drink can, in some cases, contain substances capable of causing severe poisoning, permanent injury or death.

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We should be precise about the problem. Traditional African alcoholic beverages are not inherently dangerous simply because they are traditional or locally produced. Rwanda and other African societies have produced fermented beverages for generations. Traditional production should not be casually confused with criminal adulteration.

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The real problem is the reckless or deliberate manufacture and sale of unsafe products for financial gain. Food-safety specialists increasingly describe deliberate substitution, adulteration, counterfeiting and misrepresentation as forms of food fraud. The challenge is not only to identify such products after harm has occurred, but to develop systems capable of preventing them from reaching consumers in the first place.

When somebody introduces dangerous substances into alcohol, counterfeits a legitimate product, operates without elementary safety controls or knowingly sells something whose composition may endanger consumers, we are no longer dealing simply with questionable business practices. We are dealing with conduct that threatens public health and human life.

When profit becomes dangerous

There is an uncomfortable economic reality behind adulterated alcohol and counterfeit food: unsafe products can be profitable.

Meeting food-safety standards costs money. Sincere and legitimate producers invest in appropriate ingredients, hygienic facilities, testing, packaging, taxation, certification and quality control. Criminal or unscrupulous operators can avoid these costs. Counterfeit packaging can make an illegal product appear legitimate. Bottles and labels can be reused. Inferior or dangerous ingredients can increase margins.

The seller takes the money. The consumer carries the risk.

And when that consumer becomes ill, the consequences extend far beyond the individual. A family pays medical expenses. Income may be lost. Permanent disability may result. In the worst cases, somebody simply does not return home.

We must therefore reject the convenient argument that dangerous food and drink are merely matters of consumer choice. Choice requires information. A person who has been deliberately deceived cannot make an informed choice.

A consumer buying what appears to be a legitimate bottle of alcohol cannot be expected to conduct a laboratory test before drinking it. A mother buying vegetables cannot determine pesticide-residue levels by looking at them. A customer eating meat in a restaurant cannot personally inspect the slaughterhouse, transport vehicle, cold chain and kitchen through which that meat has passed.

There comes a point where individual responsibility ends and public responsibility begins.

And the question goes far beyond alcohol.

What pesticides were used on the vegetables reaching our markets? How safely was our meat slaughtered, transported and stored? How was milk handled? Are cooking oils always what their labels claim? Are expired products reliably removed from circulation? Are imported foods adequately scrutinised? What chemicals and additives are contained in some of the highly processed foods increasingly consumed by our children? How safely is food prepared in restaurants, hotels, schools, markets and roadside establishments?

These questions should not create panic. They should create vigilance.

Most farmers, processors, traders, restaurant owners and beverage producers are earning an honest living. They should not be placed in the same category as those who knowingly endanger consumers. Indeed, responsible businesses have as much interest as consumers in eliminating dangerous operators, because counterfeit and adulterated products destroy confidence in entire industries.

The objective should not be to criminalise small producers or traditional production. Small enterprises should instead be assisted to meet reasonable hygiene and safety standards. But deliberately endangering consumers cannot be defended as entrepreneurship.

Regulation must reach the bottle and the plate

Rwanda established regulatory institutions, including Rwanda Food and Drugs Authority, and strengthened the framework governing food, beverages and other regulated products. That institutional architecture matters. But regulation cannot remain primarily institutional or administrative. It must be continuously modernised as risks change, and its effectiveness must ultimately be measured in the marketplace.

Food safety requires oversight throughout the value chain: where a product is manufactured, where it is stored, how it is transported, where it is sold and, ultimately, what reaches the consumer’s bottle or plate.

That requires effective inspection, laboratory capacity, traceability, intelligence and enforcement. When a dangerous product is discovered, authorities should be able to determine rapidly where it was manufactured, who distributed it, where it was sold and whether additional quantities remain in circulation.

The public must also be informed quickly.

Rwanda Investigation Bureau and Rwanda National Police deserve recognition when investigations and enforcement operations expose illegal production and remove dangerous products from circulation. But enforcement cannot begin only after poisoning has occurred.

In the age of mobile telephones and social media, there is little justification for allowing a product known to present an immediate danger to circulate while lengthy administrative processes unfold. Once credible evidence establishes a serious public-health threat, citizens should know what product is involved, how to identify it and what to do if they have purchased it.

Enforcement must also move upstream. Where industrial chemicals capable of causing serious harm can be diverted into food or beverage production, appropriate controls and traceability are necessary. Waiting until a poisonous substance reaches somebody’s stomach is already too late.

Parliaments also have a role. Food safety should receive sustained legislative scrutiny so that governments, regulators and enforcement institutions remain adequately equipped and publicly accountable.

Food safety is development policy

Food safety is sometimes treated as a narrow technical matter for regulators, inspectors and laboratories. That seriously underestimates its importance.

Food safety is economic policy.

A worker repeatedly made ill by contaminated food cannot be fully productive. A child suffering recurrent foodborne illness cannot learn effectively. A family spending scarce resources treating preventable poisoning becomes poorer. An industry associated with unsafe products loses public confidence.

Food safety is also trade policy.

As the African Continental Free Trade Area expands opportunities for intra-African commerce, agricultural and processed food products will increasingly cross borders. African producers seeking regional and international markets must satisfy increasingly demanding safety, quality and traceability requirements.

This is where food safety connects directly with a larger question: African economic sovereignty.

Africa must know what Africa consumes

We rightly speak about African sovereignty over minerals, energy, technology, finance and data. We should speak equally seriously about sovereignty over what Africans eat and drink.

A continent of more than a billion people cannot permanently depend on others to determine whether its food is safe. African countries need laboratories, scientists, toxicologists, veterinarians, inspectors, standards institutions, epidemiological capacity and regulatory expertise of their own. The growing attention being given to food safety by continental institutions, including the African Union and Africa CDC, is therefore welcome.

Africa should know what enters its markets. It should know what is being produced within its borders. It should be capable of detecting fraud and contamination rapidly.

And products that would be considered unacceptable elsewhere should never find convenient markets in Africa simply because enforcement is assumed to be weaker.

African lives cannot be valued less.

At the same time, African governments must avoid creating regulatory systems so cumbersome that only large corporations can comply. Small farmers, processors and traditional beverage producers constitute an important part of African economies. Regulation should help them become safer, more productive and more competitive rather than drive legitimate small enterprises underground.

The objective is not regulation for regulation’s sake. The objective is safe production and safe consumption.

Consumers nevertheless have responsibilities. We should pay attention to what we buy. Broken seals, suspicious packaging, missing or questionable labels, unexplained changes in taste or appearance, doubtful places of manufacture and products sold at implausibly low prices should invite caution. Suspicious products should be reported.

Retailers, restaurants and bar owners carry an even greater responsibility. They are the final gatekeepers between producers and consumers. Buying suspicious products cheaply and reselling them for profit cannot be regarded as harmless commerce.

Journalists also have a role. Food and beverage safety deserves sustained investigative reporting, not merely headlines when people die. Universities and research institutions should generate evidence. Consumer organisations should become stronger. Regulators should communicate clearly and rapidly in language citizens understand.

Food safety succeeds when it becomes a culture rather than an occasional government operation.

Food safety is everyone’s business.

Human life before illicit profit

The principle at stake is ultimately simple.

Entrepreneurship deserves encouragement. Profit is legitimate. Businesses create jobs, generate taxes, stimulate innovation and contribute to development. But economic freedom comes with responsibility.

Nobody has the right to become rich by poisoning another human being. Whether the danger comes from adulterated alcohol, contaminated food, counterfeit beverages, excessive chemical residues, expired products or deliberate mislabelling, human life must come before illicit profit.

Rwanda has made public health, accountability and effective institutions important components of its development model. Food and beverage safety should be treated with the same seriousness. And the principle should extend across Africa.

Our development cannot be measured only by how much food we produce, how many supermarkets we build, how many products we import or how rapidly consumer markets expand. It must also be measured by something much more elementary: whether an African family can sit around a table, feed its children, share a meal or pour a drink with reasonable confidence that what it has purchased is what it claims to be, and that it will not cause harm.

That should never be considered a privilege. It is a basic expectation of a society that values human life.

The writer is a political and diplomatic analyst specialising on Africa and countries of the Great Lakes Region.